


we didn't know we couldn't go on forever.

by KilltheDJ



Category: Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys - My Chemical Romance (Album), The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: California (Comics)
Genre: <- check notes, Alcohol, Gen, Hyper Thrust, Memories, Reminiscing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28169067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheDJ/pseuds/KilltheDJ
Summary: It's been six years since the Fabulous Killjoys died.It's been six years since they died, and Val doesn't know why he's sitting in Hyper Thrust with a glass in front of him.Unfortunately for him, ghosts do come back to haunt him - ones who own the empty nightclub he's sitting in.
Relationships: Val Velocity & Newsagogo
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	we didn't know we couldn't go on forever.

**Author's Note:**

> oi! so, the alcohol tag is there for, well, alcohol, but the character in question literally throws it to the side; mentions of past alcohol abuse by different characters, though.

Val could drink to their deaths. Val  _ wanted  _ to drink to their deaths. 

Because that was the thing about dates and anniversaries in the Zones - they held more meaning than anyone was willing to admit with their out of date calendars and years written in graffiti. No one wanted to admit it, no one  _ would  _ admit it. 

Much like Val wanted to drink to their deaths, but he couldn’t. 

_ The Fabulous Killjoys  _ died six years ago. 

(Somewhere, somewhere in his head, twelve-year-old Val Velocity was still helping the Kobra Kid with his bike at some run-down defunct gas station with stars in his eyes and a torque wrench held tight with a smile on his face.) 

The Fabulous Killjoys died six years ago and the Zones were dead silent with blood in the sand. The Fabulous Killjoys were dead and there was no one to make any of the noise, now. 

Val hated silence. In fact, he hated it so much that he was willing to do  _ anything  _ to cause it, from messing with that incessant child’s toy Volume kept around to making a scene with Vaya for the hell of it or listening to Vamos talk about their model car collection. (That was actually kind of cool, though model cars were  _ not  _ what Killjoys were supposed to collect.) 

Or, like causing a scene in Hyper Thrust. 

Hyper Thrust used to be one of the best nightclubs in the Zones - booze and lights and back rooms and a dance floor and everything anyone would want in a place like their wasteland. 

It still is, but the business hadn’t been the same. 

Val had been there once, before, around when he was ten or so. He’d been wandering around half-dead for a week with a near-empty water bottle and ribs sticking out of his body. He’d been picked up in a pretty Trans Am with paint and sand covering the body, and blood-red hair scooping him up into the backseat. 

(He hadn’t known to idolize them back then. Didn’t want to. They saved him and that’s all he cared about. But they still had their own agenda.  _ Always  _ had their own agenda.) 

They’d taken him to Hyper Thrust. They were going there anyway. It was a place for Val to rest and cool off and for Party Poison, it was exactly where he needed to be to get into another argument with his brother, who was… probably drunk off his ass, but Val had stayed at the bar counter, talking with NewsAGoGo despite how his throat burned when he talked. 

Newsie wasn’t here, not at this washed-up nightclub she barely ran anymore, but Val sat at the same barstool, rolling his ice-filled liquor cup around with his hands, the  _ scratch scratch scratch  _ of the counter against the glass filling his ears. 

It was far too quiet. Too quiet, too quiet, too quiet for a nightclub. 

It wasn’t night. But that didn’t mean it should be empty, him standing as the lone patron at the bar, lights on and no one to enjoy them. 

The desert was in mourning. It always was and Val was  _ sick  _ of it. 

They weren’t heroes! They weren’t they weren’t  _ they weren’t!  _ Val knew that! He knew that because he saw them and he knew that because they  _ told  _ him, so why the hell did everyone  _ care  _ so much? 

It wasn’t like they were going to walk through the door. They’d cheated death far too often to get out of it now, now, now, it wasn’t  _ worth  _ it  _ now!  _

The glass fell to the floor. 

Val spit at the liquid for an extra  _ fuck you.  _ Glass and liquor and ice and all just a waste in an empty bar that shouldn’t even be open at this hour, or any hour if the owner barely showed up anymore. 

(No one knew what happened to NewsAGoGo. She was always there and then gone, there and then gone; her radio station ran sometimes, sometimes, but mostly it was static, until she decided to come back from the unknown she’d holed herself up in like a  _ coward.  _ Cowards hid and ran, cowards  _ died  _ when they didn’t want to try anymore, cowards  _ disappeared  _ into thin air like ghosts.) 

The liquor itself was special, too. Everything about this was meant to  _ remind  _ him and yet all he could think about was how young dumb and stupid he was, how they’d never been heroes and he shouldn’t be mourning them like everyone else, but he  _ was.  _

Kobra’s favorite liquor. Kobra had a kick for it, a booze problem, something  _ of his character,  _ as people would say, but Val knew. Val  _ knew.  _ It wasn’t something of his character, it was an addiction, like Kobra got an addiction to everything else. Booze, Sugar, love. You name it. He’d probably done it. 

The ice, Kobra never liked ice. Chug it because he hated the taste and he’d told Val that, once. Well, Val had overheard, but still. 

Ghoul liked ice. Ghoul didn’t drink. Ghoul said it reminded him too much of lowered inhibitions and he’d had one too many late-night arguments with various crewmembers to get a taste of it himself. 

Jet liked to drink out of actual glasses. Coca-Cola or Sprite or a Capri Sun, they’d take out two glasses and hand one to Val, when he was still crashing at the Diner. 

Val had brought the glass to the bar himself. Broke it of his own accord. Fitting, wasn’t it? On the one place where the Fab Four were remembered at their worst? 

(There was nothing for Poison. Val didn’t have any love lost for a  _ fake  _ with a personality as inconsistent as Val’s temper. At least Val was self-aware.) 

The Fabulous Killjoys were dead and Val couldn’t even drink to their deaths. 

(All these years later and Val still wanted to know why they had to go and die. Why did they have to go and die? Leave him alone in that empty Diner with that toddler? Leave him alone alone  _ alone  _ until someone found him balling his eyes out like a  _ coward? _ He was the coward. He was.  _ Was  _ being the keyword, because he’d  _ grown  _ and not wasn’t  _ dead. _ )

“You better be cleaning up that mess.” 

Val snapped his head up to find the voice, coming from the corner, from - from a woman leaning against the corner with her arms crossed and boots heavier than anything even Vinyl could pull off. 

_ NewsAGoGo.  _

Val’s scoff deepened, his arms sliding off the counter, to where he could cross them. “The coward returns on the day she disappeared. Poetic cinema.” 

“You don’t know what cinema is,” Newsie snarked back easily. And maybe the real  _ poetry  _ wasn’t in their conversation but the way Val could still remember this exact same scene years earlier. “Either way, clean that damn mess up. Where the hell’d you get that glass?” 

“You’re the nightclub owner who has it all, I should be asking you.” He’s being more subdued than usual. He knew that. She knew that. And they both knew why, but neither would say it aloud, just like they would’ve done years prior with a drunk Killjoy and one red-headed revolutionist with a bone to pick. 

Newsie even managed a  _ smile.  _ Six years too late. “Hey, we have all the  _ seedy  _ kinds of things one might need for a nightclub. Broken glass isn’t one of those, or glass in general unless it’s a bar fight, in which case bring your  _ own. _ I see you did.” 

“Do you make everyone clean up their bar fights?” 

“Only the ones I kne - know.” 

“Knew. Say it. He’s  _ dead,  _ Newsie. He’s  _ dead.”  _ While taunting it in her face wasn’t his brightest moment, there’s little that could make Val regret it. She deserved it.  _ Coward, coward, coward.  _

She flinched - barely there, but she flinched, didn’t say a word, and it was time to drive the knife home, get her to  _ go away  _ before anything hurt too much or his knuckles ached. 

(That was too much like Kobra. Really, Val shouldn’t have spent that much  _ time  _ with that washed-up Exxie with violence in his blood. Kid never knew how to back down from a fight. Maybe Val’s the same. Maybe he just didn’t want to admit it.) 

“He’s dead and you disappeared like a coward. No one gives a shit about you, GoGo, ‘cos that’s you ever do. You  _ go.  _ Leave, disappear when things go bad. Whatever happened to your girlfriend, huh? She six feet under too?” 

“Leave it  _ alone,  _ Velocity. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” And Val had learned it from the best - the Venom Brothers themselves -  _ venom  _ only hid pain when something was about to snap. 

(He was about to snap, too. That’s why he was in a washed-up bar with a washed-up nightclub owner with a broken glass of liquor and ice on the floor and too many memories and parallels and  _ good times good times good times but not heroes  _ running through his head.) 

Newsie was smart. She continued before he could say anything else, lifting herself out of the corner with the  _ stomp  _ that only her boots could give. “Clean up, Velocity. I called Vaya. They’re on their way with Volume, I think. Get your act together. Visit the Mailbox. Witch knows you’ve got something to pray for, kid.” 

(Val cleaned up. She walked into the backroom, so she was as good as gone. Vaya didn’t ask. Volume didn’t know what day it was. Everything was better this way, lest  _ he  _ become the washed-up coward.) 

**Author's Note:**

> i'mnot gonna lie i wrote this to feel accomplished for something <3 val character study it is ! thoughts ?


End file.
